Reminiscing at the Pike Bar and Grill

PHOTO by ROHSEILA ROBLES

Outside the cluster of shops known as the Pike at Rainbow Harbor, one of the last remnants of Long Beach’s Coney Island past sits on a series of wooden supports. There, at the far end of a parking lot, the peaked, circular roof of Looff’s Lite-a-Line building is crumbling along its edges, seemingly ready to be buried with the rest of the old amusements. Looff’s situation, however, is a familiar one, filled with talks of rebirth and repurposing that seem to go nowhere except in circles. But just as some seem intent on using that strategy to clean up the rest of old Long Beach, Fourth Street’s Pike Bar and Grill is set on restoring the city’s past.

The way this Pike tells it, that past is when the Cyclone Racer still rose up against the beachside skyline, when sailors flooded the streets and when the city was riding its post-war boom. And so it’s from that atomic age that the Pike draws most of its décor: yellowing photos of battleships, banged-up street signs, old fishing equipment. Even some of the restaurant’s seating aims for the nostalgic, as its cafeteria-style benches are just that: smooth, wooden relics once belonging to the Long Beach Unified School District.

With all that reminiscing, the Pike Bar and Grill—in name and in style—positions itself as quintessentially Long Beach. Outside of that, though, the restaurant finds a lot of other influences—namely, those of owner Chris Reece. Best known as the longtime drummer of Social Distortion, Reece points to his years on the road to help explain the inspiration for the Pike’s food. But whatever the reasoning, the restaurant succeeds because it is inspired, because its menu isn’t some half-baked, tacked-on mess of sloppy bar fare. Instead, it offers an expansive selection of everything from ceviche and seared ahi to tacos and pastas.

Central to any good bar food is a good burger—and the Pike has plenty. The first one I tried (and the one to which I keep coming back) is the guacamole burger. Execution aside, the best part about the burger is that it doesn’t try to do too much: it’s unique enough with its spoonful of guacamole and its oblong roll, but still simple enough not to overpower with extra sauces and toppings. There are a couple of burgers and sandwiches that do succumb to that and miss the mark (the whiskey mushroom burger, for one), but what makes even those pretty good is the fries, crisp little half-circles dusted with just the right amount of salt.

To truly appreciate the chips, though, go for the fish and chips. The Pike’s excellent version of that ubiquitous dish focuses on three or four long fillets of sole, a flatfish so perfectly suited to a deep fry that its evolution seems to be little more than preparation for a dip in boiling oil. The result is, of course, a good one, with the fish encased in light beer-batter shells that puff up to such a deep brown they could almost pass as corn dogs.

There are a lot of other great dishes at the Pike—the clam chowder, the fish tacos—but eating too much neglects its other half: the bar. Since I’m yet to find a hard liquor that doesn’t ruin me mid-meal, I tend to stick to the beer menu. With about two-dozen beers on tap and in bottles, the Pike satisfies both ends of the bar, those who guzzle down glass after glass of Pabst and those who casually sip from a chalice of Chimay.

Whether you’re at the bar or in a booth, it’s exactly that diversity that wins out at the Pike, so much so that the place seems split in two: past and present, bar and grill. But because of those splits, the Pike will always keep you in line—never so full you stop drinking, never so drunk you forget how good your meal was. And at a place intent on remembering the past, that’s perhaps the most important thing of all.

PIKE BAR AND GRILL 1836 E FOURTH ST | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.437.4453 | CALL FOR HOURS | FOOD AND DRINKS FOR TWO, $20-30

Tags: american, bar, fish and chips, the pike